Cha no aji (2004)

User Rating:

7.9/10   

Director:

Katsuhito Ishii

Writer:

Katsuhito Ishii (writer)

Release Date:

20 April 2005 (France)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

A spell of time in the life of a family living in rural Tochigi prefecture, north of Tokyo. Though her husband is busy working at an office...

Plot Keywords:

Woods | Sunset | Ghost | Bizarre | Crush

Awards:

13 wins

Cast

Maya Banno	...	Sachiko Haruno - daughter
Takahiro Sato	...	Hajime Haruno - son
Tadanobu Asano	...	Ayano Haruno - uncle
Satomi Tezuka	...	Yoshiko Haruno - mother
Tatsuya Gashuin	...	Akira Todoroki - grandpa
Tomoko Nakajima	...	Akira Terako
Ikki Todoroki	...	Himself
Tomokazu Miura	...	Nobuo Haruno - father
Anna Tsuchiya	...	Aoi Suzuishi
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Saki Aibu	...	Hotaru
Hideaki Anno	...	Kasugabe
Keisuke Horibe	...	Man in Noodle Shop
Ryo Kase	...	Rokutaro Hamadayama
Rinko Kikuchi		(as Yuriko Kikuchi)
Kirin Kin	...	Grandma
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi	...	Projectionist
Ken'ichi Matsuyama	...	Young Man in Red T-Shirt
Shunichiro Miki
Kenji Mizuhashi	...	Maki Hoshino
Ryû Morioka
Yoshiyuki Morishita
Kaiji Moriyama	...	Dancer
Yûka Nomura	...	Woman in Noodle Shop
Yoshinori Okada	...	Omiya
Machiko Ono	...	CM Teacher
Daigaku Sekine	...	Detective
Kotaro Shiga
Issei Takahashi	...	Chairman of Go Club
Shinji Takeda	...	CM Director
Seiji Tanaka	...	CM Director
Yoji Tanaka
Susumu Terajima	...	Tattooed Man
Emi Wakui	...	Narrator (voice)

Also Known As:

The Taste of Tea (International: English title)

Runtime:

143 min | France:143 min (Cannes Film Festival) | Argentina:143 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Brazil:14 | Netherlands:MG6 | Argentina:Atp | South Korea:12

Company:

Grasshoppa

An ordinary Japanese family full of extraordinary people.

A truly beautiful film full of wonderful imagery and comic moments that made the almost 2 and a half hours fly past. It really needs to be seen in a cinema where you can totally integrate yourself in the atmosphere and you feel like a fly on the wall, watching the family and their situations without interrupting their flow. Visually nature plays a huge role, not just the human side of it (which is simple and uncomplicated) but the countryside, the river, the wind, the cherry blossoms, the rain etc etc. It really is beautifully filmed and the characters are all very touching, very funny and very normal really (except perhaps the psychedelic singing uncle),in their own quirky little ways. There isn't a real story line, we just follow the family over a seemingly short period of time. Some moments in the film may seem relevant and some may not, but they all do seem to fit in somewhere along the way and they are all such a pleasure to watch. I came out of the cinema feeling as though my karma was on a high and I still do.